But That Was Then, This Is Now : Part 1 Introduction

A while ago I saw someone ask, somewhere on Facebook, “But what have whites done, since the Civil War, to prevent blacks from succeeding? Why do we owe them anything?” So I got to work, thinking I’d write a post in which I’d neatly sum up, chronologically, all the ways whites have worked to systematically exclude blacks from the American dream.

Yes, obviously slavery, before and during the Civil War. But anyone who thinks that once slavery was over, everything was hunky-dory, has either had no history lessons to speak of, or wasn’t paying attention. After the Southern states capitulated, the Union Army stayed in the South for another eleven years to ensure that all enslaved people were indeed freed and that they were paid for their labor from then on, and treated fairly and equally in general. Public programs like public education and public healthcare were set up, and the army oversaw elections. African Americans voted and ran for office and a few African Americans became mayors, senators, congressmen. This period is called the Reconstruction.

But as soon as the Union Army left in 1876, the white Southerners came up with the Black Code, laws that ensured white supremacy and white power over blacks. Different states had different laws or more or less severe versions, but the following are some of the most common: Any black person who could not prove he was employed and had housing would be arrested and “rented out” until he had paid off the exorbitant fine; apprentice laws allowed for the “hiring out” of young children and orphans as free labor; some states didn’t allow blacks to own land; they were excluded from certain jobs and trades; they were not allowed to own firearms; they could not testify in court against a white person; and interracial marriage was a crime. In short, these were laws and rules that returned Southern society to how it was before the Civil War in every way but slavery.

Jim Crow: from 1877 (end of Reconstruction) to the 1960s, when the Civil Rights Acts were passed into law. The public programs set up during the Reconstruction were severely cut the moment the federal officials left in 1876. Laws were enacted that segregated blacks from whites in all areas of society, laws that made it illegal for blacks to leave their job (they were forced to sign one-year contracts) or the state they had been enslaved in, laws that required blacks to be able to spell better than their hick white counterparts if they wanted to vote, and apart from laws, white supremacist organizations like the KKK and employers also effectively intimidated most black folks into staying away from the polls. In late June, 1946, Mississippi Senator Theodore Bilbo, in a public radio address, called on

every red-blooded Anglo-Saxon man in Mississippi to resort to any means to keep hundreds of Negroes from the polls in the July 2 primary. And if you don’t know what that means, you are just not up to your persuasive measures.

All these laws were justified by the overarching Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. Their bullshit line was that they didn’t see blacks as unequal, but rather as “separate but equal”. And although the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) guarantees equal protection under the law, regardless of race, in reality blacks could not count on it. Between 1882 and 1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States, that we know of, that is. Of these murdered people 3,446 were black. Many of the white people who were lynched were killed because they helped blacks.

It’s a myth that segregation was a Southern thing, and that it, too, ended, in the 1960s with the Civil Rights Acts. Many whites want to believe that everything’s been hunky-dory since then. No more segregation, equal rights for all, so any disparity between whites and African Americans now must be … what? … must be due to African Americans being lazy, or dumb, or because of cultural differences? What?

When I started researching individual Jim Crow laws, like segregated housing, I realized that this was going to take more than one post. So in the following posts I will discuss several ways African Americans have been disadvantaged, not just during slavery, not just during Jim Crow and not just in the South. The next post will deal with housing, and I have to say, I was gobsmacked half the time while I was reading about the deliberate government policies that led to the current situations in America.

A note on the side: In these posts I’m primarily focused on African Americans because I started researching this in response to the question on Facebook by Mr. Clueless. (But at least he asked.) Also, it fits in with some research I’m doing in a different area. In many cases my findings apply to other ethnic minorities as well. I might take on each minority separately in some way in the future, but I can’t make any specific promises at the moment.

Yes, it’s not emphasized in American school history books, because American history is taught as American nationalism, not what actually happened. Everything has to be the story of America moving forward, and the story of Reconstruction in the South, and that it only lasted a decade and then things went backward doesn’t fit in that narrative. Here’s another post I wrote about reconstruction: https://residentalien.co/2014/03/24/reconstruction-now-you-see-it-now-you-dont/

The comment (and privilege) that you referrenced at the beginning is a hard thing to answer…since the replies are just so numerous and bleedingly obvious it’s hard to know what to say. But your post is a great start!

Oh, I just saw this when I posted my post! Great! It touches on everything I mention in my post and on income, crime and education, which I’m going to address in separate posts, but which are all tied into housing and one another. Thanks!

What Folks Have Been Reading

Archives: The Whole Shebang

Archives: The Whole Shebang

WHAT I HAVE BEEN READING

The Indigenous nations of North America practiced slavery for various reasons, but once the Europeans came, it became commodified in a way that looked a lot more like the human trafficking we know today. The damage it did to the entire continent is mind-boggling.

In the late 60s Richard Proenneke built his own cabin in the Alaskan wilderness with only a few simple tools. He spent most of the rest of his life there. Sam Keith fleshed out Proenneke's diary of his first 16 months, when he was making his home by a lake. I love these kinds of books!

An old Oji-Cree healer and her nephew canoe down a river in Canada, away from the world of white people. They both have to come to terms with their past. The woman has lost most of her tribe and the young man is traumatized from his recent experience in the Belgian trenches of World War One. My second book by Boyden. Can't say enough about him.

An incredibly comprehensive history of everything related to slavery in the Southern United States, from the beginning of the colonies to the end of the Civil War. Over 700 pages and I took over 30 pages of notes. I will be sharing over many posts to come!

Hamid's debut novel. I love this author. A young man in Lahore, Pakistan, is the victim of love, drugs, obsession, the class system and his complete lack of self-awareness.

A golem, created in Poland and brought to life on a ship to America, and a jinni who was trapped in a flask a thousand years ago and released in New York -- the most unusual immigrants you'll ever meet.

The only part of her life a Korean woman can control is her body, so she withdraws into it. Harrowing.

Autobiography lightly disguised as a novel about the son of Southern migrants growing up on the streets of Harlem, New York City, in the 1940s and 50s. Written like you're hearing the whole story in a bar. Quite a feat.

The story of a man struggling to make a living in Morocco. No plot, no clearly defined characters, but fascinating in its authenticity.

Four generations of black women in Louisiana, from a kitchen slave in the 1830s to a 'free' woman during the Jim Crow 1930s. What they had to do to survive, to keep what they could of their family together. Powerful.

Pakistani man tells an American about his experience as a college student and employee of an assessment firm in America years ago. Smart, nuanced and pretty darn honest considering the unreliable narrator.

Wow! The answer to the inane platitudes about how all parents love their children and how children should always respect their parents. The protagonist must come to terms with his deeply flawed immigrant parents in order to change himself.

Seven short stories about life during the Kim Il-sung regime, by a writer who still lives and works in North Korea, were smuggled out of the country and translated. Mind-boggling stuff.

A 15-year-old autistic narrator wants to know who killed a neighbor's dog, and ends up much further out of his comfort zone than he planned. Wonderful read!

In politics, education, religion, agriculture, business--it turns out that dumbing down has been here from the start.

Fifty years of Istanbul seen through the eyes of a street vendor who migrates to the city as a young boy. It's also a window into the complicated dance between men and women in Turkey.

Hey, don't laugh, at least I'm trying.

A Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with six other people on a tiny island off the coast of Maine all winter in 1873. A woman in the present researching the Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with three other people on a tiny sailboat. What could possibly go wrong?

A man stuck between two worlds in more ways than one. Fascinating!

Historical novel about early contacts between first nations and the French in Canada. Beautifully written story that doesn't pull any punches. I bought his other two novels right away.

Beautifully written. By my children's favorite English and Creative Writing teacher! It's got rave reviews and we're all very proud of her.

"What a repugnant spectacle our country has become! Falsehood, cruelty and madness everywhere, and brute force in the wings waiting to finish us off. "

Suki Kim is a Korean-American journalist. She poses as an evangelical Christian posing as an English teacher at a school for the sons of North Korea's elite. Her experience and the information she manages to get via writing assignments are incredible. Definitely a lot more eye-opening that any CNN special.

This. Explains. Everything!!!

Why has Islam not undergone a reformation like Christianity? Why is it so easy for Islamic extremist groups like IS to recruit young muslims? What would it take for Islam in fundamentalist Islamic countries to enter modernity? Does the West have a role to play?

Amazing! A man wanders endlessly through a dreamscape, becoming other people, himself in the past, everything is fluid. Kafkaesque disconnect between people and their different needs.

A multi-layered novel about the history of Libya. A fast read, but one you can repeat and find something new each time.

Twelve Americans go missing in Burma/Myanmar during a tour. Touching and hilarious, but mostly hilarious.

The quote on the front mentions that these stories are exhilerating. I couldn't disagree more. They are almost unbearably painful to read, and yet I couldn't put them down. Very well done, apart from the third story, which is written in the second tense. Please let me know if you know of ONE story that works in second tense.